How to Choose Great Corporate Entertainment For Your Event
When hundreds of corporate meeting planners were interviewed about their main concerns and interests when looking for corporate event entertainment, several items came up over and over again. Below, in no particular order, are five of the top recurring responses.
Keeping the attendees happy is often mentioned first by meeting planners. They aren't always too specific about how they'd like to see this accomplished, but they're clear that it's a top priority. Providing entertainment that elicits lots of laughs-and not just soft, polite laughter, but over-the-top, can't-catch-your-breath laughter-is one of the best ways to do this. A comedian can certainly fill this bill, but also presents some risk. Standup comedy is highly subjective, of course, and if the comedian's style or material doesn't connect well with your group, it can be a long awkward experience for everyone. Worse yet, if any of the material is offensive, the boss could be furious. Other choices could be a comedic ventriloquist, hypnotist, juggler, magician, or mentalist. People love to laugh.
Providing guests with a memorable experience that gives them a positive feeling when they think of the company and the event is another primary concern. Advertisers understand this principle and use it to their advantage. Think back to Super Bowl commercials; they clearly aim to leave viewers with a strong feeling to associate with the brand. If the attendees are smiling and having a good time during your event, their subconscious will connect those good feelings with you and your company in the future.
Entertainment must be clean and appropriate for the corporate audience, so you must be certain it's not offensive. All it takes is one crude or off-color remark to alienate some VIP in the group. Many comedians are accustomed to nightclub/comedy club audiences, who are entirely different than corporate audiences. Don't get me wrong, there are clean comedians. But there are also many who believe they are clean (and bill themselves as such), but are seeing things from a very different perspective than a corporate crowd.
Audience participation is very important for keeping and holding the attention of a corporate audience. Seeing peers up and participating in the show adds a whole new level of interest and fun. When a professional interacts with attendees in a fun and respectful way, it generates a bond and makes the entertainment far more successful. Magicians, mentalists (mind readers), and hypnotists are naturals when it comes to audience participation. These types of performers are experts at drawing in audience members as part of the show, and all three are able to use hilarious humor. The hypnotist has to be extra careful to stay away from areas that might be embarrassing to the participants, though, so no making volunteers cluck like a chicken.
Unique and different are words used often by meeting planners describing the desired entertainment for their corporate events. They want something many attendees won't have seen before, something original. For many, this excludes singers/bands (which also gets into highly subjective territory). Mentalists (mind readers), magicians, ventriloquists, jugglers, and hypnotists are possibilities, though some are more common than others. The TV show "The Mentalist" was one of the top-rated programs for several years, drawing lots of interest to this unique skill, yet most people have never experienced a real live mentalist (mind reader). As you can imagine, this brings up surprising opportunities for humor without any embarrassment to anyone.
Don Townsend is a professional mentalist specializing in jaw-dropping mind reading and laugh-out-loud fun for corporate events. He covers all the concerns above, delighting attendees with a memorable experience of amazing mind-reading feats, truly non-offensive humor, engaging audience participation, and a unique and intriguing show.
By Don Townsend
Don Townsend is an Orlando entertainer that provides jaw dropping laugh out loud corporate entertainment with his astounding mentalist act.
